We've had several evangelistic and church events this month on the occasion of the Easter holidays, as it is the celebration of Christ's death and resurrection.

Around Easter we had a campaign of giving out letters and sharing the message of Easter on behalf of our church. The letter was about the needs of our soul and the love of God expressed by the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. We and the youth of our church gave out about 500 letters.

During the week before Easter, on Friday and Saturday, we set up a table with New testaments right in front of our church, we offered them as a free gift to anyone who wanted one. All who were interested came and asked for one and it gave us the opportunity to have many interesting discussions (we think it proved to be a welcoming activity as many people longed to have a New Testament).

As a church, we greatly rejoiced over the holidays. People from our church who live a distance came home to be with us and celebrate. Once again we rejoiced over a breakfast with the whole church. It is an event we all look forward to that follows the church service at 5 a.m..  We stay a little longer and have breakfast together. This is an opportunity to express our brotherly love one toward another.

The next day we visited a church in the mountains where we have close relationships with the people there. The choir, orchestra and us all served there and went for a picnic in the mountains.

Right after the Easter holidays, we started to work on the social building in our church yard. This building will be the place for the music and kids ministry. God helped us build the walls. Another event this month is represented by the Christian puppet play. It's been a few years since we first started to work with some Christian puppeteers. They present the gospel and other Bible stories through a puppet show. They do it on a professional level which allows us to take them to a few schools in the neighborhood. That's what happened again this time. We've been to three schools and twice in our church. We had the opportunity to go to two schools where we had never been before. Praise the Lord! One of them was the school from Varfuri (I mentioned this village on previous occasions). We were happy to strengthen what we had started there. Our desire is to have an adult Bible study group. May the One who can open doors and hearts, speak to the youth and adults! Our feeling is that God gave us a long-term relationship with the people from that school. The puppet performances gave us the opportunity to work with hundreds of kids in the schools. About 60 youth and 20 adults were from our church who came with the smaller kids. By God's grace, we have new contacts of people we can visit for evangelistic purposes.

Another ministry was created by the hospitalization of two ladies from our church. I went to visit them and had a devotional time with them on Sunday prior to the church service. God gave me a good opportunity to tell the Gospel to other people with whom they shared the room. I prayed with them, gave them a new Testament and encouraged the ladies from our church to continue their mission there. A good testimony is so welcome in a place like that as it is a tremendous comfort. We think of visiting the people in the hospital and telling them about God more often (we've been doing that about once a year).

I am going to share with you a few things about the personal testimony of a young lady in our church. She's been attending our church for about nine months, but now I feel it is appropriate to talk about her testimony. Her name is Ileana I. She has grown up in foster families since she was a child. When she came of age, she met a guy from Pucioasa. She left her foster family and moved in with him. This guy is the brother of one of the young people from our church. He invited Ileana to come to church and God touched her heart, gave her repentance, and changed her into a new person. He gave her wisdom to put her life in order and make some decisions. This was a proof that God was working in her heart. Now she no longer lives with the guy, but is always praying that God will touch his heart. She is still in high school where she has a wonderful testimony among her friends.  Ileana has joy and tells others about what God has done in her life. She is very zealously involved in the evangelistic activities of our church. We believe that the Lord who can show His mercy towards "the vessels of His anger" made a special one out of Ileana as He gave her the honor to become His daughter. She found a family in our church (the one she never had) and is now involved in church activities in which she serves God in different ways (she is in the orchestra).